


Enough

by Stayawhile



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 12:46:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6470491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stayawhile/pseuds/Stayawhile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It’s not enough,</i> thinks Sherlock, watching the needle slide into his skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enough

_It’s not enough_ , thinks Sherlock, watching the needle slide into his skin.

It ought to be. It always was before, it was enough to rev his brain into high gear, cogs spinning, tumblers clicking into place, thoughts and impressions lining up like soldiers in formation, connections and answers coming faster and faster and 

_Don’t think about soldiers_

It needed to be enough, because he thought he was done but he couldn’t be absolutely utterly completely sure that some speck of Moriarty didn’t remain, a greasy smudge on the shining ballroom floor he had left for John to waltz on with Mary, Mary, Mary. And he wouldn’t be there, the next time he touched the earth he would be somewhere in Eastern Europe, and Mycroft was never wrong, the supercilious bastard, so it had better be enough. He had better be enough.

_Don’t think about a waltz, don’t think about a violin and a waltz, don’t_

Sherlock closes his eyes and there is John in his bowler hat and his ridiculous but fashionable moustache. The name is Sherlock Holmes, and the address is two hundred and twenty-one Baker Street. 

White as death, mouth like a crimson wound. 

_It’s not enough_ , explains Violet Holmes. Being clever is important, but so is being kind. Her son is angry, but she sees through the wall of his anger to the tears surging behind it. He is brilliant at his lessons but can’t seem to understand the simplest things, and it’s a good thing he’s a boy, she thinks. It’s hard now, but a man can be arrogant and rude and still be respected as long as he’s rich, or clever. If he was a girl, he would be destroyed. He tears himself out of her arms, shouting that she doesn’t understand, she must be as stupid as the rest of them. 

_Why are you so determined to be alone?_ A foolish question, and Holmes is glad that the greenhouse is dimly lit, and that Watson, for all his merits, is less than observant. Holmes is not determined, but destined to be alone. The Bride, the Woman, what does he care? Not his area. Crime is his area, investigation, logic. It is enough. It has to be enough. He’s not an addict, he’s a user. 

He tries to explain, about Ricoletti and his abominable bride, the war we must lose, he was almost there, but instead John shines a penlight in his eyes and then leaves, with Mary, Mary, Mary. 

_I am not enough,_ thinks Sherlock. I am no more than myself, insufficiently kind, intensely selfish, incredibly rude, inevitably alone. A genius, to be sure, but a broken one, fit only to live in a mind palace, not in the world. If I could, I would be enough for just one person, and I tried, I did, I even died but it wasn’t enough. 

_Don’t think about John, don’t think about John and Mary Mary Mary with a gun in her hand_

He will go back to Baker Street, and he will solve the case, and this time he will be the one with the gun, as he was at Appledore. He will be as cold and gray as the barrel of a Sig Sauer, and he will not be anyone’s friend, much less best friend. John will not make tea or hand him his phone or call him ‘nurse’ while doing what he does best, saving a life. He will destroy the man who burned the heart out of him and ensure the safety of the man who is his heart, if he ever had one. Eventually there will be another needle, and he will be very, very certain about the dosage.

_It will be more than enough._

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Ariana DeVere, whose transcript of The Abominable Bride was extremely helpful in the writing of this story.
> 
>  
> 
> The Food of the Muse is Comments...


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